The care and courage of Martin Kelly that changed children's lives, by his friend and colleague

By Peter Butler
Updated: 16:14 EST, 24 May 2008

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It is with great sadness and a profound feeling of disbelief that I pay tribute to my friend and colleague Martin Kelly. Only last week he had proudly announced that his wife Natascha McElhone was pregnant with their third child.

Martin was a great doctor, a talented artist and musician, and a powerful, passionate but caring, loyal and gentle man.

I first met him about 12 years ago when he was a senior trainee in the Royal Free Hospital. Although as his consultant I was his teacher, I quickly found that I was learning as much from him as he from me.

Both of us shared a mutual drive for excellence in the treatment and care of our patients, and a slightly schoolboyish sense of humour which manifested itself in silly escapades such as making apple-pie beds for our colleagues while on a conference in Switzerland.

Both Martin and Natascha were incredibly supportive when my wife Annabel (the daughter of Lord and Lady Heseltine) was in and out of hospital with failed pregnancies.

Martin Kelly carrying out charity work in Mexico

In 2001, Martin joined the craniofacial plastic surgery unit at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital as a consultant and was also appointed to the Royal Marsden Hospital to reconstruct faces after cancer surgery.

When I was out of contact in a hospital, it was Martin my wife called for help. Our son - and Martin's godson - Rafferty split his forehead at home and Martin organised a surgeon to repair the gaping wound in the middle of the night from Los Angeles, where he was visiting Natascha.

Martin's death will leave a hole in so many people’s lives. Eve, the eldest of his four sisters, told me how when their parents separated when he was 17, Martin took on the role of protector and guardian, giving his sisters away at their weddings and supporting them through difficult times. Eve told me about the day he saved her life.

"I was swimming in the sea and got into trouble in huge waves and wasn’t going to make it," she said. "Everyone on the beach was too scared to come and help, but Martin came. I was being sick on the beach afterwards and he just said, 'Don't ever do that to me again. I never thought we would make it.' He still went in to get me, even thinking that."

Martin's bravery was also evident when he volunteered to work with Medecins Sans Frontieres in the then Taliban-controlled Afghanistan.

While there, he was introduced to a four-year-old Afghan girl called Hadisa with such a devastating facial deformity that the Taliban were considering having her stoned to death because they thought she was bewitched.

Martin realised that for children like this there was no prospect of local treatment, so he formed the charity Facing the World with fellow consultant Norman Waterhouse. It was his passion and it has now treated more than 30 children from around the globe.

To try to encapsulate in words this amazing man is to diminish him. It is like trying to trap a wind, a light, a force of nature. He was a true polymath.